Audio 3:34
Racing industry disappointed by wage findings

Samantha DonovanUpdated
Tue 28 Jan 2014, 7:19 PM AEDT

The peak body for Australia's horse trainers and Racing Victoria say they're disappointed the Fair Work Ombudsman has found two-thirds of the Victorian trainers it investigated weren't paying their strappers and stable-hands properly.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: The peak body for Australia's horse trainers says it's disappointed that the Fair Work Ombudsman has found two thirds of Victorian trainers investigated have been underpaying their workers.

Trainers in New South Wales and Queensland were more likely to be complying with federal workplace laws.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: After getting more than a 100 complaints from disgruntled strappers and stable hands, the Fair Work Ombudsman checked the pay records of 86 horse trainers in the eastern mainland states.

More than three quarters of the trainers in New South Wales and Queensland were complying with federal workplace laws.

New South Wales had the highest compliance rate of the three states, at 86 per cent, but in Victoria only 31 per cent of trainers were paying their employees at the right rate.

Paying workers flat rates below the award and not paying casuals for the minimum requirement of three hours were the most common breaches.

The chief executive of the Australian Trainers Association, John Alducci, says he's very disappointed with the Fair Work Ombudsman's findings.

JOHN ALDUCCI: We certainly advise our members on a regular basis of their requirements to pay their strappers and stable hands and all the staff that they employ around the stable the correct pay rate. So to have that information put forward to us, yeah, we find that quite disappointing to be honest.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: What do you put it down to?

JOHN ALDUCCI: I wish I had the answer to that but we certainly advise our members of the correct wage rates and updates to the award that's negotiated between the ATA, which is the Australian Trainers Association, and the Australian Workers Union, who are the two parties to the award, and we take numerous phone calls from members throughout Australia and we have a person that's employed here full time so that members can access that particular person to clarify any points that are necessary so a little bit disappointed.

So we probably just have to work a bit harder. We sent a notice out to our members Australia-wide today, just again reiterating that they should contact us if they have any concerns or any aspects that they need clarifying but just reminding them of their obligations.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The findings were quite striking when it came to Victoria: two thirds of trainers not paying the correct pay rates. Why do you think the situation was worse in Victoria?

JOHN ALDUCCI: To be honest, I don't know. I don't have an answer to that. I would be confident that if you did that again, that if you did another audit, you might find that those figures would level up or in fact throw up different results for you the next time around.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The office of the Fair Work Ombudsman says it's encouraged by the positive response of employers in the racing industry and as all breaches of the law were fixed voluntarily, prosecutions won't be necessary.

But further monitoring of the industry and education campaigns may be needed, especially in Victoria.

The Australian Workers Union though says there's a systemic problem in the industry and the trainers should have faced prosecution.

No-one from Racing Victoria was available to speak with PM but the CEO Bernard Saundry released a statement saying that while the investigation only sampled 36 of the state's 956 licensed trainers, it is very disappointing to see that only a third of them were complying with the law.

Mr Saundry says it appears that ignorance was the key factor rather than an obvious desire to deceive, but that doesn't diminish Racing Victoria's disappointment.